Brokechella Arts & Music Festival: An interview with Gabrielle Wortman from Smoke Season

The Brokechella Arts & Music Festival is coming on April 18^th.  During Brokechella’s media day, I got to interview Gabrielle Wortman from Smoke Season and Madison from MRK.  Today, I’m posting my interview with Gabrielle.  If you are so interested, I posted a write-up on MRK yesterday.

Smoke Season will be playing the cARTel Outdoor stage.  I got to spend 15 minutes with Gabrielle.  I have to admit that I did some research on Smoke Season prior to our interview.  What did I immediately find out?  Gabrielle was in a band called Temp3st.  I saw Temp3st at Make Music Pasadena in 2012. 

Photo courtesy of Brokechella.  Photography
by Department 4.

How did bandmate Jason Rosen and you meet?  We shared the same rehearsal space via our separate bands.  We started to write music together and soon realized we wanted this to be our main project.

I noticed you majored in Music Media & Management at UCLA.  How has this helped you in your music career?  The major helped build the foundation of our marketing.  It also provided the understanding of how to manage the band on our own while we looked for the perfect manager. 

So what do you think of UCLA’s run in March Madness (note: I didn’t let her know that I’m a Duke fan and that later that night the world would know that order in NCAA basketball was going to get restored – hey, I’ve got to do a little bit of bragging)?  I don’t follow sports that much though I do know we won a couple games.  I showed up at the USC football game and my friends were surprised to see me there.  We lose when it counts.  We’re like the Bad News Bears.

I read about why you called your band Smoke Season.  Can you elaborate?  Both of us moved out to Los Angeles around the same time.  Things get strange in Hollywood.  People have smoke and mirrors personalities.  They come up with their business cards saying they know such and such music producer, but nothing ever comes of it.  A lot of our songs relate to this.

What are your musical influences?  Jason has a jazz background.  I have a classical piano background. 

Who’s your favorite classical composer – Gabrielle replied without hesitation?  Tchaikovsky.

So who’s your favorite classical pianist (I also love Tchaikovsky so I was really hoping she’d say her favorite pianist was Vladimir Horowitz)?  Tori Amos.  She’s a piano genius.  Her piano lines are so brilliant. 

I noticed that your Twitter tagline is “We prefer to have a foothold in your stereo.”  This is from a Temp3st song.  People want different things.  Some people want money.  A car.  A house.  I prefer to have a foothold in your stereo.

What do you do when not working on music?  Web development.  I also program the lights for our shows.  Both of us can also produce music.

Here’s the famous job interview question, what question am I not asking you?  What about Brokechella?  We’re excited to play. 

Note:  I took hand notes.  I apologize if I misrepresent anything that Madison said during her interview.  All comments are paraphrased to some degree.